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its going on week 3 here in Italy. I went to Siena on friday with the whole Florence study abroad group. It was great! The city is built on hills, so walking was very...interesting, and i certainly got a great calf work out with the walking uphill. We toured the main museum in Siena and we saw the church of St.Catherine. They had a shrine that had her shrunken old head that catholics would leave flowers in front of and light candles for. I thought it was super gross and so I bought a postcard to remember her shrunken worshipped head. Anyway, we ate a fabulous lunch there and learned about the Palio, which is an ancient horse race that dates back to 1147. Ten of the 17 neighborhoods in Siena have a horse race around the Camp, infront of the main Museum. They go three laps around and the winning neighborhood gets a banner of the Virgin Mary to parade around town. Its super intense and its going on next weekend, so me and some friends are going to go see it. The race itself only lasts 2 minutes, but it is super crazy since the horses are running so fast and jockies and horses sometimes get really injured and die. Its gonna be fun/very exciting to go see because the whole city gets into it. Ill have more on that after we go.